The Church of the Sojourners: Intentional Christian Community

The following is a summery of The Church of the Sojourners in San Francisco
I will be joining them for a year starting Aug 14th 2011.

Their are 4 town houses houses within walking distance of each other in the Mission district of San Francisco that constitutes the Church of the Sojourners. They are a community that shares life and are a church, they see no distinction between the two. They are multi-generational, with some families with small kids, young adults, long-time members, up to the elderly. They have a schedule of life together, involving worship on Sundays, some group meals throughout the weeknights, some bible/devotional studies. Most members have part time jobs, but not full time because they are highly invested in their housemates. They are more focused internally on loving each other well rather then constantly going out and trying to love all their neighbors. That said, they frequently receive new members or visitors who are needy into the community who are then cared for by the group.

They also have what are called discernment meetings where they come together to prayerfully decide as a community what to do with certain pooled resources, and help individuals decide about taking jobs, or other life matters. The idea is that a community of Jesus followers thinking and praying together will better be able to make any important decision, including those that American culture considers personal. And when that community also lives with you then they are invested in the results of the decision, whether for better or ill, and they get to see the fruit God bears in their housemates, and so it seems to be an atmosphere that encourages empathy and deep connection.

New members first go through an apprenticeship year which is what i am considering. It involves participating in the community life i have described, and then deciding at then end if the their is a goof long term fit. I think i would learn much from this group in the year.

Crazy Ideas for Crazy Consumers

I am in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. They have not only trash and recycling pickup here, but also compost. I also saw a Canadian TV commercial discouraging purchasing of food products with wasteful amounts of packaging. I have neither seen nor heard of either of these 2 things in the US. Its time to learn from the Canadians. We need everyone composting to dramatically reduce land filling, and we need to reduce are dependence on disposable plastic, and we should invest money in educating people as to the true costs of the products they buy. And, just like the surgeon generals warning on cigarettes, i think that ultimately the corporations that produce products should have to label those costs on the product themselves. In addition to nutrition info, there should be an environmental impact per-unit-product label. If I buy a carton of milk i should know the carbon footprint of the factory that made it, the amount of feces and methane produced by the cows, and how many thousands of years the container will take to decompose (should i fail to recycle it). This would require a policy change, which I think would be beneficial. It would mean that companies would be more responsible in their manufacturing practices because the public would actually know what they are buying into. Maybe some customers would still choose the cheapest product no matter the other factors, but at least they would now know that the cost of an out of season Chilean grape bought in California is not simply 1.99 per pound, put it is 1.99 per pound plus X million tons of container boat exhaust spewed to bring it northward.

But until such a labeling law a arrives we should not be afraid to publicly decry waste and environmental hazards no matter how common place and no matter what percent of consumers are participatory. The more educated the public the more the public can make informed decisions. I think most people will chose to save the earth, (and thus themselves), when presented with a choice. But pure TV driven commercial consumerism does not provide a choice, it just creates an empty feeling in side of you that you try and fill with the neat gadgets and colorfully labeled processed foods that commercials present. We need to balance out product commercials with educational commercials. Or require that product commercials present a more whole perspective of their product. Does any company ever do product satisfaction surveys and then include undistorted results on commercials for that product. ‘Did this product make you happy?’ should be the first survey question, because most every TV commercial is implicitly saying, ‘If you use this product you will be happy’, which is a lie. We should not assume anyone will see around this lie, especially in this the age of identity by consumption.

The Sacred Garden

I went walking today. Down the street, along the freeway and past golf course. Took a right at the gas station and took a pedestrian tunnel under the freeway. Over the train-tracks and past the man curled up on the ground by his bike. I kept walking past the spanish villas, and well kept houses with beautiful flowers to the ocean. I gazed on as the waves waved back. Then I turned right and walked up the hill along the bike path by the cliffs. There are pretty flowers along the cliff; red,  orange, purple. I kept going past an ipod-jogger and followed the curve of the path to the right, along the road; down then left. And that's when I entered the sacred garden. The land of lost love and stone memory. I had to enter. 

The gates where flung wide, great cast-iron gates, but hardly a soul was in site. A few gardeners in the distance. I walked in. Grass was everywhere, and well kept trees. A vast area. I walked up the hill in front of me staying on the road, I walked past the women in her fifties who was down on her knees sobbing, while a young man stood nearby silently, ready with a bouquet of flowers. I kept walking, past the men shoveling soft brown earth, on to the upper plateau of this sacred garden. I occasionally stopped to read a name hear or there. Some short, some long. "Carrie" or "John Doe, beloved husband and father" chiseled in stone. And usually, but not always the dates, which revealed the age. I walked on. I was drawn to several mausoleums or monuments, or castles of remembrance. Call them what you will. They stood out on the green grass. Stone sentinels. One with parthenon inspired pillars, another shaped like a pyramid. I looked in on the stacked sarcophagi, some with whole families who had lived as long ago as 1810. I walked on. 

Bright yellow flowers grew all about while in front of many stones empty flower receptacles were evident. Birds called and the sun was shining. But it was a little muggy, partly overcast, so I keep moving.

I approached one mausoleum and find its entrance blocked by a sturdy angel of weathered green iron. I ask "What news do you have for me angel?" I receive no reply. I peer through, under the angel and get barely a glimpse inside. Whoever name is inscribed inside remains unknown to me. 

I walked on, as a nearby gardener drove past graves and removed still fresh flowers left by the living. Then I saw a women sitting outside of the perimeter fence near the edge of the cliff, what was she doing leaning outward in a squatting position with her black hair pulled back. I approached her, then realized I had been looking at a stump with ivy grown up over it. 

I walked on. As I passed two tall trees I was suddenly greeted by a chorus of birds, who knows how many, thirty, forty, sixty, all singing to each other up in those trees. Small birds, with little hearts beating four hundred times a minute. A community of little bird-hearts beating and little bird-beaks chirping and munching on little worms, in those trees, over the tombstones, on the cliffs above the ocean. 

I walked on, and down the hill and left the sacred garden. 

Satan's Serpent of Sarcasm

I hate Sarcasm more and more. I would rather be punched in the face then be treated to the radiation poisoning of a sarcastic insult.

Sarcasm has been used to insult me many times; usually to try and make me feel like an idiot. My enemy could instead choose to yell "Your an idiot!!" in my face. But that would expose the verbal assailant's feelings, which would in turn open the assailant up to public scrutiny. This is not what the assailant wants. It is quite possible that the sarcastic person is not aware of their anger with me and thus may not be at a point of bursting out in anger. Rather the sarcastic one is often a frothing mixture of various suppressed human emotions, including those of resentment for the potential victim.

So whether aware or not of their hatred for their victim, whether holding back tears of rage, or bumbling along unaware yet tensely ready to pounce, sarcasm is used to insult; and it is a back-handed cowardly weapon of the emotionally fragile. A choice made by wimps who can't meet their enemy in battle, and thus prefer to slip something in their drink. (By 'battle' here I mean anything from mortal combat to heated discussion).

But what do I mean with all these metaphors? I am saying that insulting sarcasm carries out its purpose in what I think is the most mean-spirited and pain inducing way: indirectly. By being indirect the assailant delivers an insult which unloads over time as a virus in the mind of the insultee. Sarcasm is hard to defend against initially because it is often not at all certain whether the insulter is being sarcastic or not. The comment "Ben, your a great singer!!" seems innocent enough. This ambiguity usually is enough to prevent the insulter from being identified by observers as belligerent or it at least gives observers an excuse to not intervene on the insultee's behalf. This excuse is the plausible deniability needed to allow a 3rd party observer to sit idly by during verbal abuse and still appear respectable among peers.

Thus the moment passes, no one has defended the insultee because of ambiguity, and the insulter has not been identified as a mean spirited for the same reason. Also the one being insulted may not even yet be aware of the insult. But assuming he/she has heard it, assuming the acid of hate has entered the intended mind, the real cataclysm is yet coming. Upon realization, the thoughts of the insultee go like this: "I was just insulted, everyone else thinks its OK, and the vile perpetrator is now grinning ear to ear because he will pay no price (because of a lack of conscience, or a simple non-awareness of his own actions) and it is now socially unacceptable for me to retaliate, because I was not directly attacked." This is when Satan laughs a great belly laugh, this is when a fairy somewhere dies, this is when the mental anguish begins. It is a uphill battle from here to address the insulted person; to address the problem with frank discussion. As is the case for myself, I fear, that the vast majority of the time the insult is pressed down into the insulted individuals froth of personal emotions, adding to future confusion, anger, and in all likelihood, retaliative sarcasm. The world sometimes seems very dark.

Here are a few definitions of sarcasm:

Answers.com : A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.

Wikipedia: Sarcasm is the rhetorical device of using a characterization of something or someone in order to express contempt.

Moon-dwellers Remember

Once there was a large wandering river.  From glacial birth it dripped, trickled, and babbled forth, through frigid pond to freezing lake; then scampering down always down over pebbles and green moss it came. From many such glaciers did this river form. All for one and one for all, the white winter guardians slowly died, slowly became less, so the river would be more; slowly dissolved, slowly released their precious molecules to gravities keep. And so the river grew, deeper, wider, always down. Then shaded by trees, trees of all kinds. Small evergreens twisted and marred by wind and snow and ice, tall trees scarred and twisted by time and foe, large deep rooted trees wide and proud; all drinking deeply from the rivers soul. A life source and life blood it was to them. But still, on the river would go, rolling, playing, tumbling down, always down, over rocks, under rocks, through rocks. As a flowing sword this river was said to cut stone, smoothing and removing and undoing sediment, and volcanic ash, and molten rock, and precious jems and jewels alike, all the same, then flowing on and always down. 

Occasioned were this river's banks by the walking forest children, free yet thirsty creatures. And though the river paid no heed to the glaciers trees or rocks, it did perceive these ten toed wanderers. For as is told in ancient lore, river blue would laugh and babble at these thirsty forest children, and it would seize their toes and limbs that did intrude upon its frosty flow. Legend states that these fair children who frequented the rivers banks would enter often, listening to the rivers voice, feeling its cool touch. Some would grasp the rivers locks, but none could hold them long. The river delighted in these children and it would play them songs at night, melodies to warm their hearts. And these dear children warmed their souls with the waters babbling poems. Even still the river would go on, always down. But this became a joy, for the river was daily new for the forest children. These humans (as they then were called) never understood the great mystery of the River, and now it has been lost forever. 

None remember the true tale of the river's land which now is gone. Some choose not to believe this ancient legend. They reject the land of lively water flow. They say: "the birds, and flowers, trees and rocks all just seem so silly, who ever heard of an aquatic dance so willy-nilly." But we all agree that what was there is now gone, for that first planet we have lost. We had much to learn, and learn we have: to this day we've cultivated learned minds and these in turn have created much: our ships and machines, our rockets, robots, and zero-gravity-veggies, our UV shielded cubicles, exploration probes, and telescopes. But I fear that all that we have found and made and learned cannot bring back that land of mystery, that first home of blue and green. From those ancient forest dwellers we are descended and we must carry the memory of the laughing river with us always, lest we forget the mystery of the shining snake of Eden. 

my sextet of magnetized confusion

I find myself caught between various poles, suspended between seemingly opposing alternatives. I can much more easily describe what I am stuck between (with no answers in sight) then can I describe who I am, what I want, where I am going, what I should do. 

These poles are:

Desire to stay in the familiar, desire to leave all that is familiar

Desire for companionship, desire for solitude. 

Desire for food, desire for fasting. 

Desire for love, desire for anger. 

Desire for independence, desire for community.

Desire for simplicity in X, desire for complexity in X.

      - X: technology, food, relationships, hobbies. 

All of these are very deep seated conflicts in my heart. Each of the 6 above represent a Universe of thought and confusion in my head spawned by many experiences. Perhaps some of the same tensions exist in your own heart. I think it is better to be confused about these things together, and if you have it all figured out then please help me out. My quest is to explore...

1. the nature/merits/dangers of the twelve poles above, and 

2. how to journey towards balance in all six cases. 

Do you want to join me in exploring any of the 12 poles or 6 ellusive middle grounds discussed above? I don't mean philosophical discussion. I mean living and breathing side by side in the pursuit of sanity and purity, wisdom and virtue, strength and honor, understanding and discernment. In other words, does anyone want to, together, passionately and actively explore our own fears and confusions, perhaps sometimes through discussion, but mostly through urging each other on to new experience? I think both dreams and reality get much bigger when we put our heads and hearts together. Drop me an email at bfisk@westmont.edu, or respond to this post. 

Now Matters

If we realize that we have choice then we should acknowledge that what we do at each moment really matters and has real eternal consequences (assuming time marches always forward, never backwards). This acknowledgement may not show us what to do, but rather it points to an attitude of how to live (with a sense that all my choices matter and have effects beyond what I may ever know), which in turn points to the type of person we should all seek to become--> someone who is fully engaged in each moment and who siezes the day the opportunity, the conversation, not simply because we may not have tommorrow but because here and now, each person I run into, each interaction, each chunk of time, can be siezed as a small gift, a small point of traction between myself and the universe. When your car is spinning out of control, a small bit of traction can be the difference between life and death). There is so much that is out of my control, the planets in their orbits, the tides, the place and general circumstances into which I was born. The natural processes, and physical make-up of my body. But at each and every moment (also called right now) I am given a small slice of the time-space continuum as something that is under my control, or if not under my control, under my influence. I can choose a red shirt or a blue shirt and its up to me. I can do it randomly, I can choose it based on my emotions, I can even go shirtless, and it is all up to me. I can't control my neighbors shirt color, but why do I need to when I can control my own. The shirt choice I make will effect my day, it will affect what others see, it will affect how warm I am should the sun come out,.... a host of effects ripple out from my choice. What is cool is that we are given so much more of a choice then just our t-shirts. ...

What I want to say is that we should sieze upon whatever we are doing with gusto realizeing that it is important, even while at the same time realizing that we could have done things differently and that they could have turned out differently, and thus we should choose wisely in the moment, but more importantly we should live in the moment, get to know the moment, and the people we meet their, set up camp in the moment, perhaps maybe learn to love the moment, as a place of freedom, where (within contraints of various kinds) we can act with total freedom. We can choose freely, I am getting excited over this, but only because I sense that not everyone realizes that they can choose freely... we are not bound to repeat past mistakes, we are not bound to our lusts, we are not controlled by brain implants, we are not insentient robots, we are children skipping through a field of daisies, and we can pick any flower we want. Some of us are in smaller fields, we may have less daisies to pick from, but freedom is still their. I suppose those people who find themselves alone in a huge valley of daisies should rightfully be confused about which to pick. These children should go and get others to share the bounty.

As I have already alluded, our choices are indeed contrained. We can not do anything we imagine. But I do not want total freedom, I do not want the ability to control others minds, or to make stars and planets collide willy-nilly. Although both abilities would enable some fantastical and crazy things, it would be more then I could bear. I need first to learn how to properly use my slice of time-space as a finite, prone-to-fail, often-sad, continually-perplexed-and-amazed, sometimes-reckless, often-horny, occassionally-gleeful human. Their is enough complexity in the world and people around me, and enough complexity in my head, to keep me going and growing for a lifetime. And I think that that is the point. To go and grow. I don't want to stay and shrink. I want to live and die alive, rather then sit and live dead. There is enough for each of us in this life, (or at least there is enough for me in mine), even when we think there is nothing left, or nothing worth pursueing, there is. And even if all the moments that come at me are random, even if I meet one person out of each million on this earth, then I have the bright joy of choosing how to engage and love that person. I need not worry about the other 999,999 people, but I need focus dearly on him who comes my way, I need to establish myself in the moment, so that I can take in voyagers, whose present moment overlapps with mine, and serve them tea and crumpets, and we can talk about sports, or women, or adventures, or life in the full, in the fear, we can live into one another, instead of dieing past one another. And this mentality I hope will build community and a sense of purpose and life that will burn deeply in all who enter into it, and that will be mutually reinforced by co-engagers, and spread from engager to spectator like wildfire, like the holy sprirt.

May I learn to engage others more each day. May I learn to live more each day. May I each day awaken from the slumber of the previous day, as one arising from the dead, as one being resurrected from then into now, and may I acknowledge and learn to attribute this painful process of becoming real to The Real One Himself... Christ, Lord and Savior.